Ok, here's the scenario, I'm a cop's son, I
rear end you, I leave the scene to chase down my dad who's on duty when I
rear ended you. My dad locates you, grabs you by the neck and shoves a gun in
your neck with his other hand then arrests you for assaulting him.

Then I grab you by the neck and push you, then
my dad lies to a judge about what happened, then the DA doesn't prosecute my dad
even though what my dad did was a lie and captured on video
tape.

WHEN AGNES
LAWLESS and three friends were inside a Lukoil convenience store in the
Northeast at 3 a.m. last August, they'd all but forgotten the fender-bender in
which they'd been involved moments earlier.

There was
little damage, and the other driver had left the scene, near Northeast
Philadelphia Airport.

What they
didn't know was that they'd been rear-ended by the son of a police officer who
was on duty, and dad was about to get involved.

Lawless
was standing at the counter of the store, at Comly Road and Roosevelt Boulevard,
smiling and chatting with the clerk, when she was grabbed from behind and
violently pushed back with a police officer's gun in her face.

"He hit me
with his left hand, and he had his gun in his right hand," Lawless said. "He
pushed his gun into the left side of my neck. It caused a scrape-type bruise on
my neck."

After a
chaotic struggle, Lawless was arrested and charged with assaulting the
officer.

Lawless
and her three friends, all in their early 20s, filed complaints with the Police
Department's Internal Affairs Bureau. But in cases in which it's a defendant's
word against a police officer's, the benefit of doubt often falls to the
cop.

Except
when there's video.

Once
surveillance video from the store's four security cameras was released, the case
against Lawless collapsed, and disciplinary action commenced against the
officer, Alberto Lopez Sr. A lawsuit against the city is
likely.

The
incident provides a vivid example of how the countless video recordings
generated today by security cameras and cell phones are affecting police
work.

Drexel Law
School professor Donald Tibbs said that video recordings are capturing more
criminal activity and assisting prosecutions, but they're also monitoring police
conduct.

"Police
are now aware they're more accountable for their actions, because these tapes
may be used against them in misconduct cases or civil-rights lawsuits," Tibbs
said.

And Tibbs
said that there are numerous cases of police seeking to confiscate and destroy
tapes that may have captured a police action.

Internal Affairs probe

The clerk
on duty the night that Lopez confronted Lawless told investigators that three
times after the incident, police officers spoke with him about the security tape
and that two asked if he would erase it.

An
Internal Affairs investigation found no misconduct among officers who spoke with
the clerk about the tape. But it concluded that Lopez had verbally abused
Lawless, had jammed his gun into her face and had violated departmental
procedures that night.

A hearing
to determine what discipline, if any, will be imposed on Lopez is still
pending.

Although
some details of what happened are in dispute, it's clear that the Lukoil
encounter occurred a few minutes after the blue Mazda in which Lawless was
riding was rear-ended at Decatur and Comly roads by a Buick Century driven at
slow speed by Lopez Jr. Lopez Jr. left the scene and
drove to the Eighth District police station, at Academy and Red Lion roads, to
report the incident to his father. Officer Lopez and his son then left in his
patrol car and soon saw the blue Mazda in the Lukoil parking
lot.

Officer
Lopez entered the store with his son and got into a physical confrontation with
Lawless. Lawless ended up in cuffs, charged with assaulting
Lopez.

At a
preliminary hearing four days later, Officer Lopez testified that he'd come into
the store and ordered Lawless and the three young men with her to the floor, and
that "she freaked out, started punching, slapping and kicking me multiple
times."

Based on
the officer's testimony, Judge Robert Blasi ordered that the case proceed to
trial.

But four
days later, investigators from Internal Affairs got the store's surveillance
video of the incident, and things changed quickly.

Lopez was
assigned to desk duty and his weapon was removed. He failed to show up at three
trial dates for Lawless' assault charges, which then were dropped. Images from
four security cameras at the store reveal an encounter consistent with the
accounts of Lawless, her three friends and Carlos "Tito" Ruiz, the clerk on duty
at the time. ….

A night
in jail

She
[Lawless] spent the night in a jail cell, where she counted 23 mice and saw
feces on the walls, she said.

"Somebody
had probably had s--- on their hands and smudged it all over the wall," she
said. "In the morning I threw up. It smelled so bad."

She said
that she was emotionally traumatized for months, and afraid of the police. She
moved to Florida earlier this year.

The
District Attorney's Office reviewed the case and declined to prosecute Officer
Lopez in December. Eight days later, he was reissued his weapon and returned to
full duty. ….